As soon as I came down the mountain, I ran into Qiu Lu and her group. They were surrounded by a crowd of villagers, happily walking together. Even though they couldn’t understand each other’s language, their body language conveyed enough information. From a distance, I could see their faces were almost stiff from smiling so much.
One young man in a dark grey Miao costume walked beside Wen Lingyu, occasionally glancing at her. His gaze was far from innocent, and Wen Lingyu seemed to sense it as well, retreating closer to Qiu Lu.
But Qiu Lu was quite carefree and didn’t notice her good friend’s discomfort at all. Instead, she was gesticulating wildly, communicating something with a few Miao girls.
I wondered what they could possibly be saying to each other with a language barrier.
Wen Lingyu nervously clutched Qiu Lu’s sleeve, not daring to meet the man’s gaze beside her.
I jumped down the last few steps and shouted to them, “Xiao Wen, Qiu Lu, Xu Zirong! I’m over here!”
As soon as Wen Lingyu saw me, her eyes lit up as if she’d seen a savior, and she ran over in two or three steps.
Qiu Lu was still expressing something to the girls beside her, but the girls looked at us, their faces immediately changing. Their smiles froze, and they didn’t know whether to move forward or backward.
“Hey, what’s wrong with you guys?” Qiu Lu turned her head in confusion and waved to me, “Li Yuze, where did you go?”
Shen Jianqing and I walked towards them. Before we could speak, the young men and women nodded at Shen Jianqing, awkwardly looking at each other, no longer laughing or talking.
“I wanted to go up high to take pictures and happened to meet Shen Jianqing, so we came down together,” I explained, then asked, “How did you all end up together?”
Qiu Lu beamed, “The people here are so enthusiastic! Once they knew we weren’t bad people, they took us to look around their stilt houses.”
I said, “But you can’t even understand each other’s language?”
Xu Zirong put his arm around Qiu Lu. “We communicate through eye contact, OK? Look at my sincere eyes!” With that, he winked at me, his expression exaggerated and a bit greasy.
At this point, the young man who had been accompanying Wen Lingyu came forward and said something to Shen Jianqing. Shen Jianqing’s expression grew serious, and he nodded very slowly.
Seeing Shen Jianqing nod, the young men and women patted Qiu Lu’s shoulder and pointed towards the stilt houses in the distance. Qiu Lu understood what they meant, nodding repeatedly and waving her hand, saying, “Bye-bye.”
They turned and left.
Shen Jianqing said, “He just said that the chief invites you guys to participate in tomorrow night’s ‘Huoxing’ ceremony.”
“What is ‘Huoxing’ ceremony?” Qiu Lu asked curiously.
Shen Jianqing replied, “It’s a unique ceremony of our tribe. It calls upon deceased tribal heroes to return to their homeland and bless…”
“Bless what?” I asked.
“To bless a smooth year, free from disasters and misfortunes.”
Xu Zirong became excited: “Our luck is really good, encountering such a big festival event as soon as we arrive!”
Shen Jianqing gave a noncommittal response.
Time flew by, and we took advantage of the fading light to return to Shen Jianqing’s stilt house.
I took many photos today: people, scenery, and architecture. My only regret was not climbing to the mountain peak to get a panoramic shot of the village.
There will always be another chance, I thought.
After returning to my room, I started organizing my work, deleting superfluous and ruined photos to free up storage space for the next shoot.
Scrolling to the end, I saw the first photo I took today, the one I casually snapped as a demonstration when teaching Shen Jianqing how to use the camera.
The image showed the grayish-blue stilt house, with the camera pointed directly at Shen Jianqing’s room, so the center of the frame was Shen Jianqing’s pushed-open small window.
I was about to delete it directly, but I accidentally noticed what appeared to be a strange object placed on his windowsill. I zoomed in with two fingers and leaned closer to the camera to examine it carefully.
It was a gray-black container[mfn]A type of lidded pot or jar[/mfn], roughly the size of a bowl but much deeper, with a black lid. Along one side of the container ran delicate patterns: a butterfly with its wings spread wide, traced in fine lines of pale gold. Beside it was the outline of half an insect, the remaining half obscured beyond the camera’s angle.
A sudden, inexplicable notion struck me, a gut feeling that this object was far from ordinary. As I paused in thought, Ah Li’s words suddenly resurfaced in my mind.
“We can’t cast, but the people in Shidi Mountain may be able to do it!”
The Miao people in Shidi Mountain practice Gu.
At the time, we didn’t take it seriously, just treated it as a topic of casual conversation. But now, I began to doubt the reliability of that statement.
People’s knowledge of the Miao practice of casting Gu came solely from tales passed down by word of mouth; no one had ever witnessed it firsthand. To be honest, I would be lying if I claimed I wasn’t curious.
If I could prove that the Gu poisoning of the Miao people was real, if I could show the world what true Gu was… then the significance of our trip would be monumental!
However, it was already late today, and the sky was almost completely dark. It would be inappropriate to disturb Shen Jianqing again. And when I thought of that embrace earlier, along with Shen Jianqing’s cryptic words, my heart couldn’t help but skip a few extra beats. I didn’t want to go see him alone at night.
It’s better to get some rest and stop overthinking. I sighed and quietly lay down on the bed.
Life in the mountains without electricity or internet was too dull for us accustomed to high-tech living. Once darkness fell, only a few candles provided illumination, and there was nothing else to do but sleep.
I lie on the bed, wide awake.
A bright moon hung in the dark night sky, reflecting light from the distant sun. Tonight, the moonlight was splendid, shining into the forest and casting tree shadows into the room. By the moonlight, I could vaguely make out the room.
Unable to sleep, I simply got up and sat by the window, watching the moon.
Today must be close to the fifteenth of the lunar month; the moon was perfectly round and bright. Occasionally, floating clouds would obscure the moon, but they would quickly dissipate.
Perhaps tomorrow will be another good day.
I leaned my head lazily against the windowsill, and as my eyes drifted downward, I suddenly caught sight of peculiar carvings etched into the beam beneath it.
Hmm?
“This is…”
I leaned in, examining them by the moonlight.
The windowsill was carved from a single piece of wood, naturally polished by years of exposure. In the corner of the windowsill were a series of overlapping marks.
These clearly weren’t made by a knife, as knife marks would be deep and sharp. These marks were shallow and messy, more like… a person’s fingernails scratching.
It was as if someone had used their fingernails to scratch the windowsill over and over, leaving these traces.
I reached out and brushed my fingers over them, realizing how naturally a right thumb could press against that very spot.
“How sleepless must one be to be bored enough to leave these marks?” I chuckled softly, imagining the previous occupant of this room struggling with insomnia.
After sitting for a while, drowsiness overwhelmed me. I yawned and crawled back into bed.
But it seemed I was destined for a poor night’s sleep.
As soon as I fell asleep, a dream enveloped me.
I felt as though I was back in the Shidi Mountain forest, starting from the stream, then following the traces Xu Zirong left, only to get completely lost.
Within the dense forest, the wind stirred the trees, casting shifting, looming shadows. The rustling leaves mingled with the soft tread of footsteps.
All dangerous things hid in unseen corners.
I mechanically waved the branch in my hand, exploring the unpredictable path ahead.
Suddenly, a softness brush against my hand, my branch grazed a creature. It hissed as it slithered out from beneath the leaves, revealing itself to be a jet-black snake.
We confronted the snake in a routine manner.
It coiled its body, arching into an attack posture, its forked tongue flicking out occasionally, terrifyingly eerie. Its dark eyes were fixed on me, staring intensely at its prey. The pupils of that cold-blooded animal held no human emotion; anyone meeting its gaze would feel a chill run down their spine.
I dared not move, waiting for it to retreat.
But strangely, this time it didn’t retreat. Time ticked by, and I started to panic, my breathing becoming constricted.
Suddenly, my vision blurred!
Taking me by surprise, the snake lunged!
Its body grotesquely expanded in midair, transforming into a pitch-black python by the time it reached me. It swiftly coiled around me, its agile and flexible body tightening around mine, loop after loop, leaving no room for escape!
“Ah!” I fell to the ground, raising my hands to grasp the black snake’s terrifying head, warding off its gaping maw. I struggled to look back; where were my companions?
“Qiu Lu! Wen Lingyu! Xu Zirong!”
No one responded.
My life is over!
The black snake’s body was sheathed in shimmering scales. I clasped its head, feeling the cold, slick texture beneath my fingers. Though it couldn’t bite me at that moment, it wasn’t frantic, just steadily coiling its flexible, boneless body tighter and tighter.
A creature caught by a snake is destined to die, either by suffocation or by having its ribs crushed. Either way, death is certain.
With each breath I exhaled, the snake’s tail constricted a bit tighter. Eventually, it squeezed my chest to the breaking point, leaving no room to draw breath. The choking sensation intensified, and looming over me was the shadow of death itself.
Despair filled my heart. My grip weakened, and the snake’s head broke free from my restraint. Without hesitation, it opened its mouth to a horrifying, almost 180-degree angle and bit my neck!
“No!”
I screamed, abruptly breaking free from the nightmare. The lingering feeling of the dream hadn’t completely faded; I could even still feel pain. Clasping my neck, I sat up, my chest heaving from the violent gasps.
Sunlight streamed in through the window, and in a daze, I finally realized it was just a dream.
Thank goodness, just a dream.
But everything felt too real; my neck even vaguely throbbed.
When I lifted my hand to feel it, I discovered an uneven area on my neck, like a swollen lump beneath the skin.
I pulled out my turned-off phone and used its reflective screen as a mirror to check.
On my neck, there was a very noticeable red mark, likely left by an insect bite.
